I'd Rather Drown
by Karkalicious769
Summary: Gamzee can't do it. No matter how much his fingers twitch for the familiar weight of his clubs, he just can't. It would be so easy to sneak in on Dave while he's sleeping and bash his rib cage in, but Gamzee just… can't. The problem with having a black crush on someone is that the thought of killing them makes you almost as sick as they do.


**A/N: Don't expect this to be good, because it's not. I wrote it in about an hour and based it off of a loose idea. I'm terribly sorry for what you've chosen to read.**

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Your name is Gamzee Makara and you have a problem. A problem that could be easily solved the way a subjugglator _should_ solve his problems - by stabbing them - but you don't want to do that. Or, well, to be more precise, you do want to do it. You really want to stab your problem right in the fucking eye, but you can't.

You've just… never seen Karkat that happy before. He looks a whole sweep younger when he's with Dave. The human, by the way, is your problem, for those who haven't put two and two together yet.

You watch him and Dave sometimes through the vents when you're bored or jealous or simply haven't seen Karkat in a while. You hate how comfortable he is with Dave. It's like all of his worries - all of the anxiety and hardships and responsibilities that have plagued him for as long as you can remember - are just gone. You suppose that's what having a matesprit feels like. You wouldn't know. Tavros used to be able to make you feel like that, but not to the levels you're witnessing right this very moment. Maybe you were just too drugged on soper to appreciate him.

You're working on your soper problem. It's an addiction though, and it's hard to break. You've had to go slow - weaning yourself bit by bit. A world where you're always high is not a world that you want to be a part of, but you can't just _quit_. The last time you just completely stopped taking it, you murdered two of your friends. You don't like to think about it, but there's no point in denying that it happened. You wish you could kill Dave, but it's just not that simple. Something large, and painfully diamond-shaped inside of you won't allow it. You can't do that to Karkat. You can't take away something that makes him so fucking happy.

It would be so terribly easy, though. And the less soper you take - week by week, month by month - the easier it sounds. You could just walk into his respiteblock while he's sleeping and drop your club on his head. His disgusting red blood and filthy insides all over your hands as you paint the walls with your merciful message. Karkat couldn't stop you. If he saw you kill his matesprit or even found out indirectly, you know that he'd try to kill you in a fit of rage and sorrow. The thought doesn't concern you very much. He can't kill you if he doesn't have hands.

Woah.

 _That_ though quickly un-sobers you. You don't want to hurt Karkat. You don't think you could, anyway. The thought makes your stomach churn. There's no way you could hurt your best friend. Right?

The next day, you take an extra dose of soper. Just to be safe. You simply can't trust yourself anymore.

You apparently can't control yourself either, because the next night, you find yourself in Dave's respiteblock. You loom over his human bed and the light of the bathroom casts your shadow - long and terrifying even to yourself - across his sleeping figure. You quickly become in tune with the room. Trolls are a warrior race after all - killing without any second thoughts or hesitance - and your much more advanced senses tell you everything you need to know. His chest rises and falls under the blanket, his breathing as steady as it was when you first slipped inside. Your lips stretch into a sick grin. Good. He has no idea that you're here.

You can't believe that Karkat gave up on Terezi for _him_. To be fair, she's not much better, but she would have woken up immediately if she sensed that anything was out of the ordinary. She could protect him. _You could protect him_. But he doesn't care.

Your grin drops into a grimace, and your hand tightens around your club. Yes. You have something to do. You make your way around to his side of the bed, as silent as ever, and watch him sleep for a moment. For once, Dave isn't wearing his shades. He looks odd without them. He looks open and vulnerable. Almost like a pupa. For a second, you can just barely see Dave's appeal. It's in the set of his face - how much more attractive he is when he's not pretending to be someone else.

The thought just angers you even further, though and you raise your club high above your head. If you were at Equius' height - (no, don't think about him don't think about him don't think about him) - your club might've brushed the ceiling. It doesn't, but it's still heavy, and you're about to bring in crashing down when something gives you pause.

Dave shifts in his sleep, muttering words that you can't make out, and he turns on his side, facing away from you now. But that's not what makes you lower your club (slowly - and not on Dave's head like you were originally planning to do).

He instinctively wraps an arm around Karkat as he turns, pulling the small sleeping troll flush against his chest. You're stunned for a moment. Not only had you not even seen Karkat there - having thought that he was just a pillow or two under the covers - but the weight behind Dave's seeming innocent movement gives you plenty to think about. He just… he just shielded Karkat. Spooning or not, that was definitely an act of protection. Subconsciously, he was completely willing to take the hit if it meant that Karkat wouldn't be harmed.

You… you're not sure what to think about this. His species is weak. They're inferior to trolls in every way. The proof is there in their filthy blood. But no troll you know would do something like that. They'd jump awake with their teeth bared, sure, but protecting another living being with your own body? Only as a last resort in many cases.

You're kind of out of it for the next few days. You can't stop thinking about what you saw during your attempted murder. Dave is… not what you were expecting, admittedly. You still watch him and Karkat, of course. It's become one of your favorite pass times. But now, you find yourself studying Dave too. Scrutinizing his very existence as you try to fathom - to somehow wrap your mind around - what exactly Karkat finds so appealing about him.

It's kind of a pointless practice, because every time you find something - like his stupid half-smiles or his rapping skills or his completely unironic love of cuddling - you tell yourself that you didn't see it. You tell yourself that you didn't love the sound of his unrestrained laughter, or that you don't want to brush his ridiculous blonde hair out of his eyes. Karkat does, though. Your palms are always purple now, because you keep digging your sharp nails into your flesh to keep you from jumping out and killing Dave right then and there. Or worse. You fear that, if you ever did give into the urge to ditch your hiding spot in the vents, you might not kill him. You might kiss him, and that terrifies you more than you'd like to admit.

You've gotten to the point where you're always with Karkat and Dave, even if they don't know it most of the time. Sometimes, late at night, you can hear them doing… _things_. You don't dare watch. You take as much soper as you dare and pretend, even if for a moment, that Karkat isn't there. That he's somewhere else and you're in his place, eliciting those sweet moans and gasps for breath from Dave. You want to show him true pleasure so that it will hurt all the more when you bring him down to your level.

Watching them is cancerous to you. You're taking less and less soper by the day, but you can't stop. You watch them, forever cursing the diamond-shaped pit in your stomach that overwhelms you with such jealousy sometimes that you can hardly even see straight. You hate that you're still pale for Karkat. It feels right though, and you know that the feelings won't go away, even if he never returns them. You hate everything now. Especially Dave. You hate Dave so badly that you just want to bite his lips until they bleed, and rake your nails down his back until everything is _red_ , and mark him until everyone on his damn meteor knows that he's yours.

You think that paying attention to Dave was a mistake. Because you noticed things, and you liked those things, but you still can't like _him_. You couldn't bring yourself kill him anymore, though. You think that you somehow developed a black crush on Dave. It makes you angry. You'd rather drown in soper than have feelings for him, but it seems as though you don't have a choice. And maybe you never really did regardless.

Seeing him with Karkat when you know that you can never have either of them makes you _angry_. They both regard you as something that is no longer impressive enough to hold their interest. You're a joke to them both, at best, and it makes you even _angrier_.

You've stopped taking soper completely now. You hate being off of the stuff, because now all you ever are is _angry_. You're just _so fucking angry all the time_. You can't stand it. You're angry at yourself - because of how important they are to you. You're angry because of how unimportant you are to them.

Being pale for Karkat makes you angry. You doubt that even he could calm you down - as if he'd want to. And having a black crush on Dave makes you so unbearably furious that you feel like you can't breathe. But while there's a chance Karkat might have pale feelings for you someday, or even if he does right now, you know exactly where you stand with Dave.

He'll never hate you back, and that's what makes you angriest.


End file.
